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Kislak Dissertation Fellowship

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In this inaugural year, two Fellowships will be awarded: one to a fourth-year student and one to a fifth-year student.

Between the time that the Fellowship is awarded, and the beginning of the Fellowship itself in Year 6, the Fellow will be introduced to the staff of the Kislak Center and be invited to Special Collections functions.  In future years, only fourth-year graduate students will be eligible to apply for the Fellowship.

Once the award is accepted, the Kislak Fellow agrees to withdraw from other sixth-year funding applications both internal and external to Penn.

Description

The Penn Library and the Department of English are pleased to announce a new, fully-funded sixth-year Kislak Graduate Dissertation Fellowship, which will be awarded to an English Department graduate student who has contributed to the intellectual life of the Penn Library. The Kislak Fellow will be embedded in the Kislak Center in his or her sixth year of graduate study and will be expected to work a minimum of 20 hours a week in the Library between September 1 and May 31 or approximately 600 hours total. 

Responsibilities within the Library will include a full range of curatorial experiences. Duties could include curating a small exhibition, purchasing books, researching and cataloguing collections, managing digital projects, running symposia and other programs, engaging with donors and the community, teaching from the collections, contributing to publications, working with conservators to ensure the care of collections, and working with researchers to answer queries about holdings. The goal of these responsibilities is to provide the Fellow with curatorial training that will support his or her career, as well as to provide the Library with the expertise that it requires to maintain its extensive holdings. Every effort will be made to integrate the Fellow’s research interests with the programs, projects, and collections with which he or she will be engaged.


Eligibility
Candidates for the Kislak Fellowship are fourth-year graduate students in the Department of English who are in good standing and have completed all the requirements for the doctoral degree except the dissertation. Fellows are expected to demonstrate a commitment to the use of Special Collections in their research. In this inaugural year, two Fellowships will be awarded: one to a fourth-year student and one to a fifth-year student. Between the time that the Fellowship is awarded, and the beginning of the Fellowship itself in Year 6, the Fellow will be introduced to the staff of the Kislak Center and be invited to Special Collections functions. Once the award is accepted, the Kislak Fellow agrees to withdraw from other sixth-year funding applications both internal and external to Penn.


Application Materials

Applicants should submit the following materials by November 15 at 4pm via email to the Graduate Coordinator

1.   An email from the applicant’s Dissertation Director that s/he is in good standing and making acceptable progress on his/her dissertation project

2.   A cover letter outlining the applicant’s eligibility for and interest in the Fellowship

3.   One recommendation letter from a Penn Faculty Member

4.   An unofficial transcript

5.   Dissertation Project Proposal

6.   A current curriculum vitae

 


Kislak Dissertation Fellowship Recipients

2019

Alicia Meyer (recipient)

2018

Mariah Min (recipient)
Mayelin Perez (recipient)